Sexy photos: Is your 12 year old sending them?

“Sexting” is alive and well among teens, but not the youngest ones, according to a new report on the teenage phenomenon.

Fifteen percent of cell-owning teens ages 12 to 17 say they’ve received nude or nearly nude photos of people they know via cell phone, while 4 percent say they’ve sent them, according to the nationally representative study released today by the Pew Internet Project.

The study is the first to survey sexting behaviors among the youngest teens, and the numbers are pretty much exactly what researcher Amanda Lenhart expected — low. Only 6 percent of teens ages 12 to 13 say they’ve received a “sext.”

“Hardly any of them are doing it,” she said. But “a lot of teens know about it, deal with it and think about it.”

Older teens are far more active sexters. According to the study, 8 percent of 17-year-old cell phone users say they’ve sent sexts and 30 percent — nearly one in three — say they’ve received them.

Adolescent flirtation is nothing new. But thanks to camera phones and good old peer pressure, “sexting” appears to have arrived as a kind of “romantic currency” that can be easily exchanged even outside a teenage relationship, Lenhart said.

“The desire for risk-taking and sexual exploration during the teenage years combined with a constant connection via mobile devices creates a ‘perfect storm’ for sexting,” Lenhart said in a press release. “Teenagers have always grappled with issues around sex and relationships, but their coming-of-age mistakes and transgressions have never been so easily transmitted and archived for others to see.”

That’s where the law comes in. Six teens faced child pornography charges in January when three 14- and 15-year-old girls sent suggestive photos of themselves to a couple guy friends. Police in upstate New York became involved in a mass sexting incident this spring when a nude photo a junior high school student took of himself and sent to a girl reached more than 300 kids.

Worried parents can always curtail teens’ mobile use or limit the number of pictures their teens can send. But that might not be the best approach, Lenhart said.

“Having these kinds of conversations about why this isn’t such a good idea can be really helpful,” she said. “It may not stop all of it, but at least you’ll have laid the foundation for your teen to be thinking about it and to be thoughtful about it.”